Corporate Jonney!

I wanted to demolish several of the old hen houses today. The bonfire at the bottom of the field needs adding to before I set fire to it and Pat the animal helper will be donating her garden waste to the collection this afternoon. Her garden is the best in the village!
I won't have time to get dirty today
For today I am playing a " corporate husband"
The Prof is head of the Health Sciences school at the University and from time to time will have meetings where I am expected to attend.
My job, is to scrub up, smile, add an occassional witty/ intelligent remark to a conversation which is generally over my head and remember not to splash gravy down my front.

Today it's a meeting over lunch in a very nice restaurant.

I am reminded of a University " do" I was invited to way back in our Yorkshire days. It was at the University social club event which was populated by the gliterati of Sheffield academia
Like any group of like people that work together, shop talk was the order of the night, and after two hours of listening to " research talk " I was ready to batter a nun to death with a chair leg.
One Professor was exceptionally boring, and so, in between bouts of "research this"  and  " academic study that" I took the opportunity to sneak to the bar for an emergency gin and tonic.
At the bar was a sympathetic looking , rather chic lady in her sixties and I couldn't help confiding in her just how bored I felt.
" The old Prof over there is banging on like a good 'un" I ventured " he's boring the fucking tits off me"
She patted me on the arm in a supportive way
" You try being married to him...I've had to put up with it for forty years"

Yes...no gins for me today!

Anyhow, I will leave you with a tiny bit of Trelawnyd surrealism .
In the spring sunshine, I heard the dogs all trying to retrieve something from atop the garden wall when I was sat with my morning coffee
Someone had dropped off a neatly wrapped panettone without a note presumably a gift for the hens and sheep!

51 comments:

  1. So do we get to see a photo looking all natty and gravy-less?

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  2. Now about the one-legged nun. Surely she should have been fitted with a proper prosthetic limb rather than a chair leg! Remember to cock your little finger when drinking a cup of tea at the university event as that is the very emblem of etiquette.

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  3. Oh I HATED those business dinners. You have my sympathy. Husband still tries to play the 'you're my wife, you're supposed to support me' card when he has works reunions, but he's retired and SO HAVE I. Never again.

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  4. Anonymous10:53 am

    I say love. I say pet. I say love, please don't send me off to Google to find out what (copy)panettone (paste) is. You surely must have made a food drop faux pas.

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  5. I dislike herd meals, no let me correct that, I hate herd meals. I avoid them, even though I am unlikely to drip gravy down my front (my Prof does that.) Good luck!

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  6. Lucky hens I'd say!
    Now be good and just nod a lot!!

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  7. Why would someone throw out an artisan baked
    panettone, has it expired? Greetings Maria x

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  8. Pretty funny, John. I had to read this one twice. haha! Your neighbours are the best.

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  9. I hated going to my husband's business get-togethers and after years of polite smiling and not really fitting in, I said, "no more". I compared it to going to a dentist. He never minded going to mine, and was always relaxed as long as they were serving wine.

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  10. Stale leftover panettone -- the flock will love it!

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  11. My husband owns his own business and no one expects me to show up anywhere. Thank god.
    Now. Family. Another story.

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  12. "...so, anyway, I was coming back from the shop and I was just walking down the lane, past the church, and I put my cake on the wall while I bent down to tie my shoelace and bugger me! Someone pinched it!...."

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  13. You're like me John every shirt I own has spills down the front, including my work shirts. I just cover them with a sweater :-) Anyway, dress nice, nod a few times, make idle chit-chat, smile and make the Prof a happy man!

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  14. I am so happy you were REAL and how delightful
    "the wife" was real back atcha . . .
    (I detest having to tag along for hubs business lunches/dinners.
    But I do it . . . Smile, sweet, listen, often bored.)
    (A toddy does help . . .)

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  15. It does sound boring, but you will survive. (For the love of all that's precious, please don't wear the green slacks ...)

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  16. I'm sure the prof gives you a once over with a Roger Moore raised eyebrow before you're let loose on the faculty.......and I love panettone/pannetone......x

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    Replies
    1. He did tell me i had the wrong top on

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  17. Your village friends are a hoot !
    Lucky sheep and hens.

    cheers, parsnip

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  18. Maybe french toast w the stale panettone? Depending on how long it sat out on the fence..

    The dinner sounds ghastly. And archaic.

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    1. Sliced, buttered and marmaladed it would make a delish. Bread & Butter pudding.

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  19. Hope you didn't have to wear a tie - they seem to attract blobs of gravy to the unwary man in my experience.
    Are you sure that pannetone wasn't for you. Try a bit before you decide it is stale .

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    1. It was full of chocolate..the sheep loved it

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    2. I have a choclate one I'd give you bought at 1/2 price after Christmas... I wish I could lay it on your wall too. Maybe the birds will eat it.
      Ruth In Oxnard CA. USA

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  20. I'm sure you are a tonic at these dos.

    I have a lovely memory of a girl joining the sixth form to do art A' level at the school I'd been attending since 11 years old. In the girls' loos she said, " I have Dopey Dave Dutton for art " about our very laid back ( probably pot smoking ) art teacher. His daughter said, " yep, that's my dad "

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    1. Its a common faux pax me thinks
      I was pretty good today..no gravy...no swearing, no bullshit
      Well only a little x

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  21. I suspect that wife appreciated having a kindred soul at the do...

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    1. hahaha Elephant hopefully she did!
      Ruth in Oxnard California USA

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  22. Anonymous9:15 pm

    A brilliant example of foot-in-mouth disease there. Love it!

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  23. Mr Him is in convulsions of sympathy over your foot in mouth disease. It's the sort of thing he'd do. He's also in hysterics of laughter and says he loves you.

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  24. Would a donation to the animals' food really be so prettily wrapped? It might have been an Easter present for you and the Prof.

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  25. Thank you John for not letting me down! As soon as I started to read this blog my mind was full of potential scenarios that you would get yourself into. I am glad you lived up to our expectations xxxx

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  26. I cannot tell you how many times I have made this faux pa.... until I learned to keep my fat mouth shut (But then I am older than you). Its only been maybe 5 years that I gained that maturity (??)okay I'm almsot 67... there is ALWAYS room to grow (Snort)
    Ruth in Oxnard CAlifornia USA

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  27. Too funny by far - at least from the observer's point of view. What a nice lady :)

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  28. And I thought it was only in Italy that hens and sheep ate Panettone.

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  29. Years ago my hubs worked for Shell. The corporate jollies were the most boring thing on the planet, So many people enthusing over oil! I used to get very pissed, very quickly and lounge up a corner smiling sweetly.
    Now he works for a company that makes very technical parts for very technical engineering projects- and they don't expect other 'alves to turn up to functions. Deep, deep, joy.

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  30. I feel your pain re the academic dos. I've eaten out several times with Jenny and her academic chums, and oh dear, I might as well not have been there, they were totally engrossed in academic chit-chat and gossip about their lazy or incompetent colleagues.

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  31. Obviously we've all been there. My tale is of the second works Christmas dinner I attended. A man approached me and commented that this was the second year that I had attended alone. I agreed and said that my other half was probably walking the dog about now, and would be picking up 'fish and chips' on his way home and how I wished I could be there with him instead of at this crappy corporate do.

    I later asked a colleague, who was that guy? The reply 'That's the senior partner'

    Maybe he agreed with me. I'm still employed there 18 years later.

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  32. Thankfully we live too far away for me to attend Lovely Hubby's works functions, so I get away with him saying 'she's back home in Wales looking after the farm' .... makes me sound busy when in fact I am just at home playing with chickens and vegetables ... and not having to wear a posh frock :-)

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